The BBC reports on a Turing scholar's recent claims that by today's standard of evidence, there's reason to doubt the commonly-held belief that the famed computing pioneer committed suicide in response to government persecution over his homosexuality. To be clear, he does not claim to have disproved the suicide theory -- only that the cyanide poisoning that killed Turing could well have been an accident caused by his careless at-home experimentation with dangerous chemicals.

Hum, sarcasm I presume, but as there is always a shadow of doubt on this cases: General Douglas MacArthur and Marshal Bernard Montgomery. When I was a young boy there were lots of books, documentaries and movies about or citing them. What we have now? Most kids will never hear about them, even more likely if they are not from USA or England.

That is why I used "Time scale" for title. Those of US that like to learn, and are in the very special position to afford that, will learn about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle even though they lived 2500 years ago. Will learn about Euclid and the impact of math development. Will identify the struggle to understand ourselves and the world we live in, sometimes even receding and rediscovering. This is what I tried to emphasize. Those characters on our history that gave a boost to ourselves despite living way before us. And learning and commenting about them is a way to render tribute to them. It has nothing to do with pop cultural hysteria or five minutes fame, for what matters.

PS. Overall, I guess Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid aren't remembered as well and don't inflame the imagination of people to the degree of Xerxes the Great, Leonidas, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Spartacus, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Sun Tzu, Moses, Muhammad (let's be honest here, the last two were primarily conquerors), Vlad III the Impaler (you know, possibly a major inspiration for Dracula), Saladin, Cortés...